1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioner, and more particularly to a discharge current control apparatus of an air conditioner and method thereof which accomplish an air conditioning of whole indoor areas by controlling a wind direction, a wind amount and a predetermined temperature of a discharged air.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional air conditioner includes an indoor unit body 1 (hereinafter referred to as "body"), a suction inlet grille member 5 having a plurality of suction inlets 3 for sucking an indoor air and disposed at a lower portion of a front surface of the body 1, and a discharge outlet 7 discharging an air, which is sucked through the suction inlet 3 and transformed into a cool wind or a warm wind by heat exchange, to indoor space and disposed at an upper portion of the front surface of the body 1.
The discharge outlet 7 includes a plurality of horizontal wind direction blades 9 for controlling upward and downward a wind direction of an air discharged through the discharge outlet 7 into the indoor space and a plurality of vertical wind direction blades 11 for controlling the wind direction leftward and rightward. A cover member 13, which beautifies an external appearance of the indoor unit and protects internal parts, is provided at the front surface of the body 1.
A lower portion of the cover member 13 is provided with a control unit 15 for controlling operation modes of the air conditioner (automatic action, air cooling, humidity removal, air blast, air heating, etc.), start/stop of operation, and a wind direction and a wind amount of the air discharged through the discharge outlet 7.
In addition, as shown in FIG. 2, an inside of the suction inlet grille member 5 is provided with a filter member 17 filtering foreign particles such as dusts which float in the indoor air and are sucked through the suction inlet 3. An inside of the filter member 17 is provided with a linear heat exchanger 19 which transforms an indoor air filtered through the filter member 17 into the cool wind or the warm wind by a latent heat of vaporization of refrigerant.
Besides, an upper portion of the heat exchanger 19 is installed with a blower fan 23 (hereinafter referred to as "indoor fan") rotating according to a driving of an indoor fan motor 21 so as to suck the indoor air through the suction inlet 3 and simultaneously discharge the heat-exchanged air through the discharge outlet 7 into the indoor space. An outside of the indoor fan 23 is provided with a duct member 25 which covers the indoor fan 23 and at the same time guides the air flow sucked through the suction inlet 3 and discharged through the discharge outlet 7.
In the aforementioned air conditioner, when a user selects a desired operation mode and turns on an operation key by operating a remote controller or a control unit 15, the indoor fan 23 is rotated according to the driving of the indoor fan motor 21 so that the indoor air is sucked through the suction inlet 3 into the body 1.
The filter member 17 removes the foreign particles such as dusts, which float in the indoor air and are sucked through the suction inlet 3, and then the filtered indoor air is heat-exchanged by the latent heat of vaporization of the refrigerant flowing within the heat exchanger 19 during a passage of the heat exchanger 19.
The heat-exchanged air is guided upward by means of the duct member 25 and then is discharged through the discharge outlet 7 into the indoor space. At this time, the wind direction of the discharged air is controlled upward and downward or leftward and rightward according to an angle of wind direction of the horizontal wind direction blades 9 and vertical wind direction blades 11.
A method which controls the wind direction of the discharged air upward and downward is as follows: when a key provided at the control unit 15 for operating the horizontal wind direction blades 9 is turned on, an angle of the horizontal wind direction blades 9 is changed upward and downward, and when the key is turned off, the operation of the horizontal wind direction blades 9 is stopped.
In addition, a method which controls the wind direction of the discharged air leftward and rightward is as follows: when a key provided at the control unit 15 for operating the vertical wind wind direction blades 11 is turned on, the vertical wind direction blades 11 are rotated at a predetermined angle, and when the key is pushed again, the operation of the vertical wind direction blades 11 is stopped.
However, in the aforementioned conventional air conditioner, it is inconvenient to use because a desired discharge current pattern should be found by operating the keys while the user directly confirms positions of the horizontal wind direction blades 9 and the vertical wind direction blades 11. In addition, a control range of wind direction is narrow and it is not possible to control air currents of a whole indoor space and a long distance because the discharged air is discharged in predetermined upward/downward or leftward/rightward directions according to the angle of wind direction of the horizontal wind direction blades 9 and the vertical wind direction blades 11.
Furthermore, since an angle control of the horizontal wind direction blades 9 and the vertical wind direction blades 11 is necessary at predetermined intervals for air conditioning of the whole indoor space and an increase of wind amount is necessary for air conditioning of the long distance, the user should control a change of the wind direction and the wind amount according to the foregoing of his own accord.
In addition, since the vertical wind direction blades 11 can rotate only in leftward and rightward direction, it is impossible to control the air current concentrically with regard to one of the indoor space.